The Carpenter's Children

by Maggie Bennett

  Isabel left with Paul on Christmas Eve, a Monday, travelling down to North Camp by train. Less than two hours after her departure, a telegram from the War Office arrived at St Barnabas’ vicarage. Sally Tanner received it from the telegraph boy, her hands shaking as she took it to Mr Richard Storey in his study. He too gasped at the sight of it, as if it were a poisonous snake. It was addressed to Mrs Isabel Storey, and would certainly contain no good news, he knew; it would say that his son was dead, or that he was missing, which usually came to the same thing; or it might bring news that he was wounded, and lying in some base hospital.

  ‘What am I to do, Mrs Tanner?’ he asked in distress. ‘It’s not addressed to me, and if…if I opened it and saw that my…my son has been killed, I could telephone the Reverend Mr Saville at North Camp, and he could let Isabel know while she’s there with her parents. Or should I keep it for her to open, and let her enjoy this short time with her family and friends? It might be the last…’ The old man’s voice faltered, and Sally laid a hand on his arm.

  ‘Open it an’ see what it says, Mr Storey. If it’s bad news, it can wait till she’s ’ome, and yer can tell ’er then, or we both can. Don’t spoil their Christmas.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I think, Mrs Tanner – thank you. Where’s Miss, er, Grace? Perhaps we should ask her opinion, too.’

  ‘She’s busy with ’er baby, and wouldn’t know any better ’n us. Yer should open it now, Mr Storey.’

  ‘All right, my dear. Please stay with me while I do so.’

  She watched as he slit the envelope in fear, and took out the fatal piece of paper it contained. He stared at the message as if he could scarcely understand it, but eventually looked up and stared at Sally, his face transformed.

  ‘Praise be to God, M-Mrs Tanner, he’s been wounded, it doesn’t say how or where, but he’s in hospital at a…a place called, er, Chateau Mondicourt, it says. Oh, Mrs Tanner, he’s alive!’

  ‘An’ ’e’ll be comin’ ’ome, an’ won’t ’ave to go back again – comin’ ’ome!’ cried Sally, clapping her hands together.

  ‘Thanks be to God, Mrs Tanner, my son is saved – we’ll all see him again!’

  They hugged each other, the elderly clergyman and the reformed drinker, weeping and laughing in their relief.

  A good congregation filled St Peter’s Church on Christmas morning, though the festive season was shadowed by the sorrows occasioned by the war. One of the happier sights was of little Paul Storey, now seven months old, with his mother and his proud grandparents, for Mrs Munday had made the effort to come to church, and stood between her husband and Isabel. Neighbours who had not seen her for a while were shocked at her gaunt appearance, for she had lost weight and her face had a yellowish pallor, in spite of her smiles for her little grandson.

  Lady Neville sat in her usual pew, accompanied by Mrs Gann, a thing unheard of before the war, but in the absence of husband, sons and daughter, her ladyship was glad of the companionship of her faithful cook-housekeeper. People craned their heads to see Philip Saville with his mother in the pew just below the pulpit. His general health was slowly improving, and though he had to use the hated crutches for walking, his mother explained that he was to be fitted with a wooden leg.

  Mr Bird and Phyllis came over to speak to the Mundays after the service, for Mrs Bird had not been to church since the death of her sons; Isabel’s heart ached for the family.

  Lady Neville also came to admire baby Paul, and to speak quietly to Isabel about her mother.

  ‘I know your father’s worried about her, Mrs Storey, and she’s obviously not responding to Dr Stringer’s treatment. In fact she’s as bad as my daughter Letitia who simply refuses to eat – but whereas my daughter’s just being silly, as if starving herself will bring Cedric home safely, I think Mrs Munday gives real cause for concern. Do please ask your father to request a second opinion, my dear.’ She sighed, and made an effort to sound more positive. ‘It’s good news about your sister Grace, isn’t it, taking charge of your husband’s father and running the vicarage while you’re away. Whoever would have thought it at one time? My daughter could be of such help to me, helping to run my little convalescent home at Hassett Manor, it’s the only thing that stops me giving way to useless melancholy, with my husband and Arnold in India, and Cedric driving these frightening tanks or whatever they’re called. He says they could bring the war to an end – but forgive me, Mrs Storey, your own husband’s away, and here’s this dear little boy who’s never seen his daddy – I’m being thoroughly selfish. Tell me, do you get much news from the front?’

  Concerned for her mother, Isabel told her father what Lady Neville had said about getting a second opinion. It only confirmed his own worst fears.

  ‘I should’ve done so before, I know, Isabel,’ he said heavily. ‘You know what she’s like, says it’s all worry over Ernest, and she’s got this idea in her head that she’s never going to see her son again, and there’s nothing Stringer can do about that, and neither can I. Still, you’ve made up my mind for me, and I’ll go round and see Stringer first thing on Thursday.’

  ‘Ask him for a referral to a specialist at Everham Hospital, Dad. If there’s nothing physically wrong with Mum, at least you’ll be reassured.’

  Tom nodded, thankful as ever for his good elder daughter. Doctors’ bills were mounting up, and specialists didn’t come cheap, but he would override Violet on this issue, for nothing was more important to him than her health and happiness.

  When the train drew into Waterloo Station on Boxing Day, Isabel let down the window in the door, and put her head out to see if Sally was there to meet her. When she saw not only Sally but her father-in-law and Mrs Clements, she clutched her baby to her heart. Good God, they must be here to support me, she thought; they’ve had news – something’s happened!

  When the train stopped they came to help her step down to the platform, with her baby and suitcase. Her face was ashen.

  ‘What’s happened? Is it Mark?’ she whispered, and then saw that all their faces were wreathed in smiles. ‘What – oh, tell me, do!’

  ‘My dear, he’s wounded and in a French hospital,’ said Mr Storey. ‘Which means he’ll be coming home to us.’

  ‘Oh, Pa…’ Holding baby Paul under her left arm, she hugged her father-in-law with her right, as Sally and Mrs Clements both put their arms around her. She could not have asked for a happier homecoming.

  When the three of them and baby Paul were settled in a horse-drawn cab, cheaper than the motor-driven taxis, Isabel asked about Grace. Mrs Clements and Sally glanced at each other, and Mrs Clements answered.

  ‘Very low at present, ’cause it’s nearly time for the baby to be took off ’er. The woman from the adoption says the first week in January.’

  ‘Oh, poor Grace! However shall we comfort her?’ asked Isabel sadly.

  ‘Best thing’s to keep busy, an’ she’ll be back at Mr Clark’s by this time next week,’ said Sally. ‘That’ll keep ’er occupied, as well as bringin’ in a bit o’ money.’ The last words were uttered with a significant nod, as if to indicate that Grace should pay her way instead of sponging on her sister. Isabel heard the unspoken disapproval, and was about to say that Grace had always paid for her board, including the time of her confinement and since, using up her post office savings account; but then they would have speculated on the origin of that account, which Isabel thought was entirely from Grace’s time at Dolly’s music hall (for she knew nothing of room Number Four and its traffic), and the very words chorus girl would be linked in their minds to baby Rebecca’s conception. So Isabel said nothing, but dreaded the moment her sister must soon face. And furthermore, she would have to tell her sister about their mother’s deteriorating health. Poor Grace! Isabel felt almost guilty for being so happy in the midst of such trouble.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  January–February, 1918

  Another new year dawned on a grey, war-weary nation, stunned by the horrific losses of its sons, th
e bright and hopeful boys cut down in their hundreds of thousands, and without bringing victory any nearer; in fact the end of the war seemed like a mirage, fading into the distance, again and again. At home there were serious shortages, long queues for meagre rations, and families went hungry, especially in poor areas like St Barnabas’, where pale, undernourished children shivered in draughty rooms. There was a deep desire for peace, but no great hope of seeing it, and the stirring patriotic songs of 1914 now had a hollow ring.

  At 47 Pretoria Road in North Camp, Tom Munday was having to come to terms with another deep anxiety, and this time it was not for Ernest or his daughters. He now bitterly reproached himself for not recognising his wife’s declining health, and Dr Stringer’s failure to diagnose anything more sinister than melancholy. Now the truth was staring him in the face, though he still feared to give it a name. An appointment had been made for a reluctant Violet Munday to see a specialist at Everham General Hospital on January the seventh, and until then he had to hide his fears under a false optimism, something that had become second nature to him over the last few years, and he confided in no one, not even his old friend Eddie Cooper, until the specialist’s opinion and recommendations had been given.

  At St Barnabas’ vicarage there were mixed emotions. Isabel and her father-in-law waited daily for news of Mark, lying wounded in a requisitioned chateau near Béthune; and Grace clasped her baby to her breast as the time for parting drew near.

  On the eleventh of January, a Friday, two letters arrived at the vicarage where the family sat at breakfast. One was addressed to the Reverend Richard Storey, and the other was from Tom Munday to his daughters. Isabel hastily slit this envelope open, anxious for news of their mother. It was not good. Isabel read aloud that Violet had seen a specialist, a surgeon who had looked grave after examining her. An X-ray had been ordered, and blood samples tested, and now an urgent operation on the stomach was recommended, something Mrs Munday had always dreaded, and had at first refused to agree to it.

  The sisters stared at each other in alarm, and Isabel continued to read aloud.

  ‘I’ve had to be firm with your poor mother,’ Tom had written. ‘I saw the look on that man’s face, and I blame myself for not pressing Stringer earlier for a referral. She is going into Everham Hospital next week, and I have to tell you girls to be brave. She’ll need looking after when she comes home, and I’m hoping that Grace will be able to help us out for a while, seeing that Isabel has Paul to look after.’

  Isabel whispered the last few words because of the irony of the situation, for Grace also had a baby to care for, though not for much longer, as she was to see the representative of the adoption society in two days’ time, when she would sign the papers agreeing to the adoption of Rebecca Munday.

  ‘Grace, dear – perhaps this is providential,’ said Isabel softly. ‘If you go home to help Mum and Dad, you’ll be doing good work, and away from here, which will be best for you.’

  Grace swallowed and moistened her lips. ‘Yes. I’ll write and tell them I’m coming home, and they’ll never know what I’ve left behind.’

  ‘That’s very good of you, Grace, and so brave,’ said her sister. ‘It’s a terrible wrench for you, but you know that Becky will go to a Christian couple who really want a baby…’

  ‘I know, I know, for once in my life I’ll be doing some good.’

  ‘Bless you, Grace dear,’ said Isabel, kissing her. ‘Now, I wonder what’s in that letter to Pa. It had a foreign stamp and a word in blue letters across the envelope. It may be something important, and I’m going to ask him about it.’

  As she rose to go to Mr Storey’s study, he appeared at the door and beckoned to her. She followed him, her heart pounding.

  ‘What is it, Pa? It’s Mark, isn’t it? Tell me what it says!’

  ‘My dear Isabel, sit down here and I’ll tell you. Mark’s very ill, but expected to recover. The letter’s from another chaplain who’s been talking to him. He feels that you…that we ought to be warned of my son’s condition before he’s put on a Red Cross ship for home.’

  ‘Oh, Pa, what is it? Give it to me – let me see!’ she cried, putting out a hand to take the letter from him, but he held it away from her, and told her again to sit down and listen to what this padre had to say.

  ‘He’s written to me rather than to you, my dear, so that I can talk to you quietly, and you must listen. I’ll let you read the letter yourself after I’ve given you the gist of it.’

  ‘Yes, Pa, I’m listening, only tell me quickly! Has he lost a limb?’

  ‘No, Isabel, he has not. He’s wounded in the lower abdomen,’ said the old clergyman, trying to find the right words. ‘He’s damaged in the…the genital area. He’ll need a lot of care, and patience too, when he—’

  ‘Where in the genital area, Pa? Do you mean his penis?’

  He nodded, relieved at her directness which made it easier for him.

  ‘Yes, my dear, it is the penis that’s been, er, damaged. The shaft of it has been reduced to a mere stump, this padre says, and it’s sufficiently healed for him to pass urine through it, though he has to sit down, like a woman, but he will be unable to have normal marital relations with you. That’s what it says here, my dear Isabel, and that isn’t all, because Mark has become embittered by his experiences, and has lost his faith. He actually told this padre that he fears meeting you again because of the wreck he’s become.’ The old man’s voice shook as he added, ‘That’s the actual word he uses – a wreck – oh, my poor boy.’

  He brushed away tears with the back of his hand, and looked at Isabel. She was smiling, and reached out to take that hand in her own.

  ‘Thank you, dear Pa. It must have cost you a lot to tell me this. But we’ll help him, Pa, we’ll help him through it, we’ll show him what love can do. We haven’t lost our faith, and we’ll lead him back again, don’t you see?’

  ‘But my dear, this terrible injury,’ he quavered.

  ‘That doesn’t worry me at all on my account, only on his. I don’t need that sort of relationship, in fact he refrained from it all the time we were married, except for that last time, and our dear little Paul was the result of it, but I shan’t need it again.’ She smiled into his face. ‘There are other ways, Pa, and we’ll still be close and loving. All I want is to see him home again, here where he belongs.’

  ‘Bless you, my daughter,’ he answered, getting up and coming to her side, embracing her like a father. ‘My son is fortunate in having such a wife!’

  ‘And such a lovely little son,’ she added, as if she didn’t mind that Paul would be an only child.

  When the day came for baby Rebecca to be taken from her natural mother and given up for adoption, the atmosphere in the vicarage was tense. Isabel showed the pleasant-faced, grey-haired lady into the study where Mr Storey sat, and they watched her open her briefcase and put the papers on the table. Grace was called in, and on seeing the documents she began to moan softly, a keening sound like a lament; it made the old clergyman think of a cat whose newborn kittens have been taken from her, or a cow parted from its calf.

  What were Grace Munday’s thoughts? She had been refused an abortion, and had accepted that this unwanted child would have to be adopted, right up to the moment of its birth when it became she, the daughter she had fed and nursed for more than six weeks. The shameful circumstances of the conception were overruled in Grace’s heart by the love she now felt for this child of her flesh; and now they were to be parted for ever. She wept for her baby, resisting all efforts to calm and comfort her.

  ‘Now, Grace, we can’t have this,’ said the lady, not unkindly. ‘You know that this is all for the best, especially for Rebecca.’

  ‘You must be brave, my child, for the sake of your child,’ said Mr Storey. ‘You’re soon going home to do your duty, looking after your mother and father. Put your trust in the Almighty, and do this other duty for the child.’

  Suddenly Isabel spoke, having stood silently beside her sis
ter up until now. ‘This must stop!’ she said firmly and clearly. ‘I can’t let it happen. I’ll take Becky and bring her up as my own, and my husband’s. She’s not going to a stranger.’

  There was a momentary silence, and Sally Tanner, hearing Isabel’s upraised voice, left her washing of sheets and towels to come to the study door. Mr Storey breathed a long, deep sigh, and Grace swayed as if about to faint, but Isabel caught her and sat her down on a chair, keeping an arm around her. The lady with the briefcase, hearing the voice of authority, gathered up her papers and left, leaving an address where she could be contacted. Sally went to put the kettle on.

  ‘Try not to be too upset, Grace, in front of your mother,’ said Tom Munday on meeting her at Everham Station, and noticing how pale and wan she looked. ‘She’s coming home at the weekend, so we must get the house looking decent for her. I’ll take her armchair up to the bedroom, and the little table, so’s she can sit at the window if she feels like it.’

  ‘Yes, Dad. I’ll help you all I can.’

  ‘It’s a comfort to have you home, my girl. It’s not going to be an easy time for any of us. If only Ernest could be here to say g—’ He covered his face with his hands before continuing. ‘I’m sorry, Grace, but I can’t get used to it. You’ll come with me to visit her tomorrow, and that’ll make it a lot easier. And she’ll be glad to see you.’

  One look at her mother in the women’s ward of Everham General, and Grace Munday knew that there was no hope of recovery; she also knew that she would have to nurse her mother and comfort her father in the days and weeks ahead. Her father told her what the surgeon had said after the operation.